Is Butch Jones The Worst Coach In The History Of Tennessee Football?

The only good thing about Tennessee’s 2017 football season is that it's now over. A year that started with a promising 42-41 double overtime victory against Georgia Tech ended on the sourest of notes, a beatdown at the hands of a 4-7 Vanderbilt team. Yesterday's 42-24 defeat assured the first 8 loss season AND winless conference record in program history.

There’s nothing to be excited about with Tennessee, other a new coach, though that could also be another low point, depending on how the search is resolved. 

A couple of “high”lights from 2017:

• The Vols have now lost their last game against every SEC opponent.
• Tennessee finished the season with 3,255 yards of total offense, last in the SEC, and 3,123 punting yards, the second most in the conference. For comparison, Auburn had 1,631 punting yards and 5,235 yards of total offense, Alabama had 1,638 punting yards and 5,271 yards of total offense, and Georgia 1,915 punting yards and 4,745 yards of total offense.
• They were outscored 278-113 in conference games.
• The now infamous 15+ quarters offensive TD drought.
• They had three different starting quarterbacks this year, none of whom are the definitive QB of the future.
• The turnover garbage can that suddenly disappeared sometime in September and was never heard from again.
• They lost lost to Georgia and Alabama by a combined score of 86-7
• “The best bye week in the history of the program” that led to a 9 point effort against South Carolina.
• “Leadership Reps”
• John Kelly got busted for marijuana possession. 
• Jauan Jennings released a profanity-laced Instagram video where he screamed like an oafish fool and called the coaching staff "snakes" and "liars". This led to his dismissal from the team.

• They gave up a Hail Mary to Feleipe F%#^*# Franks.

• The entire team quit on the season after the Kentucky game, which led to them getting outscored 122-41 in their last three conference showdowns.
• The greatest play of the season was Rashaan Gaulden’s double birds into the Alabama crowd, which would've been cooler if it didn't happen when they were down by three touchdowns.

I mean, I could go on for days, but you get the point; everything that happened this season was terrible. It’s the worst season in program history by any measure.

This, of course, has left everyone in Vol Nation both depressed and pissed, which in turn has caused several of them to hop onto social media and go after Butch Jones by saying he was the worst coach in school history. Look…. I was as frustrated with Butch as much as anyone, and he certainly gets a lot of blame for how this season turned out, but the worst ever? Have we forgotten how bad Dooley years were?

Let me remind you: Dooley’s three year run was an absolute nightmare. No bowl wins, three seven loss seasons, 13 men on the field against LSU, and an 0-9 record against Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. He didn’t sign a single offensive lineman in his last recruiting class, and he was prominently involved in the Vols having their 26 year winning streak against Kentucky snapped. His entire tenure was a horrifying lesson of what happens when you promote someone with a position coach skill set to be the head coach of a major college football team. Frankly, this picture sums up the Dooley years perfectly.

I can’t believe I’m defending Butch here, but the guy did win three straight bowl games AND finish with back-to-back 9-4 seasons, albeit with 11-1 talent. But Dooley absolutely destroyed the program, tarnished its reputation nationally, and hollowed it out from a talent perspective. Butch’s platitudes eventually made him a laughingstock in the national and local media, and made him reviled within the fan base, but at least he drastically raised the talent level in the program AND beat Florida and Georgia a combined three times. What’s a positive from the Dooley era? The time he wore orange pants?

I’d even argue Kiffin was worse than Butch. Lane left the school in the middle of the night right before signing day, which was what led to the emergency Dooley hiring. Plus, almost none of the players Kiffin recruited in his only class lasted beyond the 2010 season. There’s this revisionist history that’s popped up over the last few years that Tennessee was somehow wrong to fire Fulmer, and that’s why they're in this position now. That take is, of course, ludicrous. The program had deteriorated by the end of ’08 season, and moving on from Fulmer at that time was the right call. Hiring Kiffin, only to have him stab them in the back about a year later, was really the point where everything started to go south.

As I said before, I think the entire team quit on the 2017 season after they blew that winnable Kentucky game. That one, where they dominated the time of possession, outgained the Wildcats, and won the turnover battle, was a total back-breaker and season-ender. They just didn’t have any energy or desire after that, and it showed on the field, as they slogged through the month of November to a frightening degree, so much so that I could’ve sworn I saw Pete Rose and the Black Sox on the sidelines. Does Butch take the blame for them quitting? To a certain degree, yes, but you’d think this group of athletes would have enough pride to show up for the seniors and try and win the last two games of the season, particularly when Butch was removed after the Mizzou game. If they hated his guts so much that they quit on him, then where was the effort once he was gone? Everything that happened the last two weeks should fall squarely on the shoulders of guys in the locker room. Butch didn’t call one play, drop one pass, miss one block, or create a single game plan the last two weeks. Did he create the negative atmosphere around the program? Yes. But the players in the locker room didn't show up the last month, and it was embarrassing.

This season sucked. I’m glad it’s over. Let’s hope 2017 becomes a faint memory, like a traumatic childhood experience, something that we can all get over in a few years when the new coach (hopefully) takes the program back to where we all want it to be. Those chances look a lot slimmer though, when John Currie announces tomorrow that Greg Schiano is the new coach. Geez... please don't let that happen.